


There's Always Complications

by candlewarmth



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Disabled Character, Developing Relationship, Dimension Travel, Domestic, Don't copy to another site, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Older Man/Younger Woman, Pregnancy, Private Investigators, Slice of Life, Unplanned Pregnancy, fixers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23151577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candlewarmth/pseuds/candlewarmth
Summary: Opening her eyes to a completely new world, Barbara has to figure out how she and her sometimes-ally Slade Wilson are going to survive until they get back home.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Bruce Wayne, Barbara Gordon & Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon & Jim Gordon, Barbara Gordon/Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson & Slade Wilson, Jason Todd & Slade Wilson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. If You Can Stand Up Then You Know Where To Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Medea by Birdtalker.
> 
> Have you ever wanted to read a story about Slade Wilson and Barbara Gordon, sharing an apartment in New York City, being small-time fixers who are helping their community? No? Me neither, but I dreamt about it and now I do.

When Barbara opened her eyes, it was to a pounding head and a dry mouth. The light streaming in through the window had a certain quality to it - blinding. As she sat up, she ran through a physical inventory of her body. Head - hurting. Back - aching. Legs - still couldn’t feel anything. But where was her wheelchair?  
Across the room, she heard shuffling, and turned to see Slade Wilson already standing. Those metahuman powers. He didn’t look any worse for the wear. She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again.  
“Do you know where we are?” But Slade met her eyes and shook his head. He crossed to the window and peered out.  
“Probably New York, from the skyline. How’re you feeling?” Slade turned from the window to look at her.  
“Like I’m hungover. But we weren’t drinking, so what the hell happened?” She was still sitting on the floor, but there wasn’t anything else to sit on in this room. This fact was beginning to irritate her.  
“We were meeting in the meatpacking district. After that, not sure.” Slade hadn’t killed anyone in a while. That they knew of. But if he wanted to keep to the straight and narrow, that was his business. Their business was stopping crime, and Slade was good at it when he wanted to be.  
By now Barbara had found her phone and comm. The comm was full of static, and her phone wasn’t connected to any cell network.  
“Damnit” Stranded in NYC with no wheelchair, no comm, and Slade Wilson was not her idea of a great time. It was right up there with being naked, juggling chainsaws, and serenading Oswald Cobblepot. By the not-look of his face, Slade had the same idea.  
“So what do you want to do? Hang around here, or head back to Gotham?”  
“Gotham. No point waiting around for whoever dumped us here. We’ll beat them back.”  
“Okay. Let’s do it.”  
“Right.”  
Slade was eyeing her askance. Barbara sighed through her nose and held up her arms. He nodded once, stepped in close, and scooped her into his arms. Time to explore the city.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, they had found a wheelchair. That was a plus. A minus was that it was extremely uncomfortable and had none of the upgrades her normal wheelchair back home had. Like a place to hide escrima sticks.  
They had found quite a few other things. Like a map. A map with no Gotham.  
Of course they double checked. And triple checked. But it looked like there was no Gotham. Maybe never had been. So they had found a library. Libraries were always Barbara’s safe zone. Somehow the information grounded her, the letters not swirling around in cyberspace but safely typed onto each page. Not a book in here changed once printed, but her understanding of each book changed each time she read it. It was as much her place as the Internet. But if the Internet was the Old West, the library was her homestead. So the first thing she did there was find water - an internet connection.  
They didn’t exist.  
Oh, there was someone named Barbara Gordon in this universe. She had a New Jersey zipcode and the inclinations of a white hat hacker.  
And there was a Slade Wilson. Former military, currently private security.  
They weren’t vigilantes. Or mercenaries. Even Bruce Wayne wasn’t as famous as in their world. A millionaire who liked to get into bar fights and took judo. That’s all he was here.  
Barbara was beginning to think getting home wouldn’t be as easy as an Uber. And she wanted it to be easy. She wanted to get back to her life. Her life of crime-fighting, and monitor-watching, and feeding her cat (Tim would take care of Blue once he realized she wasn’t home). Not whatever this was. Eking out an existence alongside Slade Wilson, of all people.  
Slade had been on their side for a while. But not so long a while that she’d forgotten anything. Maybe he didn’t even want to stick around with her while she figured this mess out. Maybe he would bail at first opportunity, find his own way back, one that didn’t involve a goodie two-shoes Bat.  
This wasn’t a productive line of thought. Focus on getting home. Focus on what was waiting for her. Dick. The Birds of Prey. Her cat (well her cat would be fine, Tim had that). Everything she loved. Everything she hated.  
If she was honest, Slade didn’t make either of those lists. He was something of a nonentity in her life. A source of information, curiosity, and consternation. Maybe somewhat intriguing. But ultimately, something that doesn’t warrant a second thought. She knew Dick didn’t feel the same way. It seemed Dick viewed Slade as his own personal nemesis, and was about as close to trusting Slade’s change of heart as he would a Tim without caffeine addiction. But now she was stuck here. She didn’t have her computers, she didn’t have backup, she didn't have a network of informants. All she had was Slade Wilson, which all things considered, wasn’t bad. Of all the people to be stuck with, he was probably the most resourceful.  
They would find a way home.  
They had to.


	2. How Many Butterflies Have To Flap Their Wings To Keep You Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Take It Slow by Birdtalker
> 
> They're here now, so what will they do? Become a crime-fighting duo in New York, of course.

They bought sleeping bags after Barb hacked an Amex card. Sleeping bags and toothpaste. Also bread, peanut butter, protein bars. The assorted products they would need to survive while they figured this out. But there was a bad feeling in Barb’s stomach. Like she’d eaten day-old shrimp that had been sitting in the sun.  
That feeling only grew stronger over the first week. As near as she could tell, there wasn’t a way to get home from this universe. Somehow interdimensional hopping seemed nonexistent, like it didn’t even occur to people on this planet there was anything in the world besides what was on this planet. For fuck’s sake, there were still flat-earthers here. Gotham’s conspiracy theorists had moved on to more interesting ideas eons ago. And with the amount of batshit crazy things that happened in that city, they had fairly decent odds of being right. Kinda like firing into a flock of birds, you’re bound to hit something. Might not be a bird, but still.  
How long would they be stuck here? Forever? Barb had no doubt the Batfamily would be searching for them constantly once they missed her, but how long would that take? And how much time would be sucked up in looking for them in that universe?

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took eight days for Slade to snap.  
One minute he seemed fine, and the next he was storming out the door with a thundercloud for a face (if this had something to do with Barb making an ill-timed comment about the usefulness of hacking as opposed to being a wall of muscle, she’d never say). When he came back, his bruises were already yellowed and he had a contact for an underground fight ring.  
“You didn’t accidentally kill anyone, did you?” Normally she wouldn’t ask, but some of those shiners had obviously obscured his vision for a while.  
“Not even hospitalized.” There was a faint smile lingering on his face, like he’d been catching up with old friends. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From there, Slade was taking jobs as hired muscle, as a mover, as a tough. He was obviously more skilled than any of these jobs required, but the pair didn’t want to attract attention. This didn’t mean Slade wasn’t discriminating in his choice of employers. And once he started breaking the fingers of a local gang for trying to hire him for a protection racket, word spread that the eyepatch guy was good for taking care of abusive husbands, dangerous johns and pimps, and the gang members that hung around too often. Occasionally he’d bring Barb along if he thought she’d be better at convincing someone to accept his help, seeing as she was a younger female in a wheelchair and people didn’t know to be just as scared of her.  
This led to Barb’s own connection of contacts. She wasn’t about to give up on home, and that meant she needed equipment. Finding local hackers and dealers was a huge part of getting herself up to speed. She needed the right tools. And sometimes she used those tools to help Slade’s clients file protection orders, or unemployment, or start online school.  
Homebase was affectionately known as “the office” and some people even knew to find them there. One of Slade’s more appreciative contacts had taken one look at the place, walked out, and come back with a tool kit and lumber. So at least the place wasn’t going to fall down on them.  
They still called each other Wilson and Gordon. But their totally-legal driver’s licenses listed them as Wilson Hale and Linda Gordon-Keene. Speaking of id’s, once it became known Barbara could also do those, they got even more gigs. And if life was getting a little more usual, a little more routine, no one had to know that, now did they?

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Their life shaped up oddly and yet neatly. They kept long hours, working and always working. Barbara started hacking, monitoring different government feeds, trying to spot anomalies from when they dropped into this world. If she could find something, maybe they wouldn’t have to wait for Bruce and the Batclan (trademark pending) to rescue them.  
First fight was about beds. Slade didn’t see a point to them and said as much. Barbara hadn’t given up hope they’d be out of there soon (six weeks in) but she was tired of the floor and saw no reason to be uncomfortable for the rest of their time there. Barbara won, in that she got a twin bed and Slade won, in that he continued to sleep on the floor. So everyone was happy, right?

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well no, everyone was not happy. It took about six weeks of being there, five weeks of interfering with the local mob bosses, before Barbara was kidnapped. They weren’t very nice about it either, hadn’t anyone heard she was disabled? But she played along for a while, never hurt to get more info on the opposition.  
Then one of them hit her.  
“For the last time, who is your partner?!” Barb rolled her head back up from where it had snapped to the side, looking the livid man in the eyes. He had several veins popping, no doubt due to her obstinance in the face of his questions and his upcoming demotion in the wake of Slade’s interference. Someone had seen the two of them together a couple times and drew conclusions, which was unfortunate for all involved. She idly wondered what would irritate Slade more --- having to rescue her or people thinking they were a couple.  
In the meantime, she could make his job a little easier. The gang member drew his fist back, clearly at the end of his patience. Unfortunately for him, so was Barbara. The idiots had kidnapped her in her wheelchair, they hadn’t even tied her arms. Which she appreciated, really, but they wouldn’t in a second. When his fist came around towards her face, Barbara grabbed the concealed taser she kept in her wheelchair and got him in the neck. Once he fell to the ground convulsing, she rolled towards the exit, mindful of the two heavies posted on the other side. But when she heard their bodies hitting the floor, she figured her ride had arrived.  
“Going my way?” Slade was smiling faintly when he saw the crumpled body behind her. The smile went away when he saw the beginnings of a bruise on her jaw. Barbar caught his arm before he bowled his way in, tugging slightly.  
“Yeah, I want to get home and figure out a better security system for next time these guys try to grab me. And take this opportunity to convince these guys it’s a bad idea. By not killing them.” Barbara hoped the intense eye contact would convey her seriousness. Slade rolled his one eye.  
“Then you should let me handle it, Gordon. You head out and I’ll take care of it.”  
“If by ‘taking care of it’ you mean torturing, maiming, and/or killing, then no. I’m staying here.”  
“Gordon, I don’t do that anymore. But they’ll be more scared of me if you aren’t here. They know I’m more likely to cave their face in.”  
“But not this time. You’re not doing that this time, right?”  
“No Barb, but I want them to think that.”  
Slade was looming over her a little, looking more than a little annoyed. But Barb was smiling.  
“You called me Barb.”  
“So?”  
“So? You’ve never called me by my first name, let alone my nickname.” She was grinning. Slade rolled his eye again.  
“Yeah, I called you your nickname. Now will you go away so I can do my job?”  
“Oh I’d love to, but….” And here she tapped her wheels, “I got a pretty good look and the kidnapper’s van isn’t wheelchair-friendly.” Slade tossed her a set of keys. While Barbara was looking at them, Slade pointed outside.  
“Luckily your new car is what I drove here in.” She looked from the keys to Slade and back to the keys. Then rolled the rest of the way out of the warehouse to see a Ford Explorer.  
“I got a deal on it. Should make life a little more convenient.”  
“Except for street parking.” But she was smiling as she left him to humiliate a few thugs.


End file.
